Date of Award
2005
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract
If mid-twentieth-century African-American authors based discussions of race in America on the theories of prominent Franco-African writers, African-American writers such as Richard Wright were also highly influential in discussions of race in the French literary context. Wright's novel Native Son focuses on protagonist Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally commits murder. After realizing how the white community has interpreted his act, Bigger tries without success to break free of "double consciousness," or fragmented subjectivity, first articulated by W. E. B. DuBois. Boris Vian's text J'irai cracher sur vos tombes problematizes Wright's literary analysis of race through protagonist Lee Anderson, an explicit literary reworking of Bigger. Lee, in deliberately passing as white in order to murder two women, displays a more deliberate subjectivity. The act of passing erodes the legal foundation of black segregation and highlights a more active subjectivity, yet it also displays the limitations encoded in that act.
Extent
99 p.
Recommended Citation
Guillerm, Celine, "Color lines: "Passing" and its implications for literary subjectivity in Richard Wright and Boris Vian" (2005). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2000 - 2009. 815.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_5/815
Identifier
FADT13262
Comments
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2005.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters